Four Guitars coming soon: Two For GFA 2015 & Two Orders

The past month has been busy with work on the current batch of four guitars, the most I've begun at once since 2008. Two of the four are now assembled and will be brought to the French polishing stage before I brace the soundboards and assemble the other two.

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The Floating Brace

Floating brace inside a
Miguel Rodriguez guitar

This January I was asked by a customer to install a floating brace into a couple of his guitars (which were built by different luthiers, not me)...

What the heck's a floating brace?

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In the White & After Finish: A Sound Comparison

I mentioned a few posts ago that I might try to record some sound samples of one of my guitars in the white (ie. before finishing), and then again after French polishing.

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Black Veneer Experiment

Preamble

Here are a few thoughts, and the results of a recent small experiment I did on the permanence of black dyes in rosette making. Basically, I wanted to know what materials, if any, could replace ebony in my rosettes. Even though I only tested a few potential materials, the results were positive and a little surprising.

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Since August...

Once again I have to say that mostly due to the beautiful summer we just had, I wasn't able to make the usual blog posts. Guitar life was super busy however, so here is another mishmash of things since the last post in August.

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This Week at Scott Guitars - Necks & Table Saw Jigs

Neck shaping complete

About to finalize neck thickness and shape

The current batch of instruments is now just a handful of hours away from the start of the finishing stage. They've been fretted, had their necks shaped, and had all scraping

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This Week at Scott Guitars

Been working away on the current batch of two guitars that will be accompanying me to the GFA in L.A. this June. The heels and head stocks are carved,

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Thoughts On Tuning Machines

 I realized that I have a lot of tuning machines in the shop right now, so I decided to write a little review comparing and contrasting all of the brands.

The brands and models I'll talk about are:

• Gilbert - gold base plates, snakewood buttons, black rollers
• Gotoh - 35AR510P-BB
• Gotoh - 35G1800H
• Sloane - leaf bronze base plates, ebony buttons
• Alessi - F5 ebony buttons
• Alessi - H2 ebony buttons
• Baljak - Mare Ebano

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A Word About Wenge

So, I've had this set of text book perfect millettia laurentii, or African Wenge (pronounced weng-gay), wood in my shop for a handful of years. A couple of months ago I finally found the inspiration to use it, and the perfect instrument to use it on - it's the spruce guitar I'm currently working on, that will be done

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Temperature Controller For Safer Side Bending

I posted a topic on the Delcamp forum a little while ago about this temperature controller device that I made for side bending. Thanks to those who participated in the thread there. I've copied the same post here, but I also added some more how-to info for those who may be interested. It's not difficult or too costly to make.

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